The Girl on the phone

Here you get a glimpse of Elizabeth chit chatting with her imaginary friends on the phone. Don't be surprised if she dials your number one of these days.

The Purple Dress

Here is Elizabeth in her lovely purple dress. As you can see she really enjoyed wearing it.

I especially liked the dress since it cost all of about $8.99 at The Children's Place. You can find some adorable kiddie clothes at crazy low prices.

Of course Elizabeth can wear a burlap sack and look like a cutie pie.








So, Elizabeth had her first dental appointment last week and as might gather from this photo--it went swimmingly. She had zero cavities and managed to charm the entire office. She walked out with a boatload of toys and a cool Mr. Dentist tee shirt.




Here she is trying to put on socks...actually these are Marty's socks. She is especially interested in putting on socks that are at least 5 times to large for her


She is also fond of wearing shoes that are a little on the large size.



Oh, and her new favorite hobby and possible future profession is hair dressing. She has a unique technique as well. She uses her little sand shovel as a comb and insists that Marty sit in her special pink chair. Oh, she will have a load of clients, I can't tell.


Here is Jakey, Kaila's big brother, last week when we all went out for dinner. Jake was the perfect big brother and easily handled both Kaila and Elizabeth. Hmmmm....can we borrow him? And isn't he cute.

Growing

Here is a view of Elizabeth that I think shows how she is turning from a baby into a toddler...and little girl.

I am also pretty stressed about making sure she learns the difference between fountains and pools and bathtubs.

She will be learning to swim soon but even then you have to watch like hawks when kids are around water--or anything else for that matter.

While I hate to use a quote from the moose killing hockey mom (is that the best we can do for VP?) Sarah-- when you are around little kids, "you can't blink!"

Opps, did I just get a political jab in? Oh, no--not me.

Elizabeth and Kaila

Here are some photos of Elizabeth and Kaila who had a blast last weekend at the mall. They managed to spend some time dancing next to our table at the restaurant and then decided to have all sorts of fun running happily along the marble floors at the mall.

As you can see they are cute as can be when they are together--which is really sweet since we remember about 10 months ago when they were in China together. What a difference 10 months has made!

Little Miss Cleaner

Here is a video of Elizabeth showing off her cleaning skills. She really does love to dust and wipe up things. Too bad that her ability to make up a mess greatly outshines her ability to clean up!

She really is so cute when she does this. Sometimes when we are at a restaurant she will decide that she has to clean up other peoples' tables. Wonder how she would be at washing the car?

Update hello

It has been a wacky few weeks here with all sorts of medical appointments and minor hiccups...all which become incredibly complicated when we have Elizabeth with us. We are slowly learning how to manage life while trying to make sure she is taken care of. I think when she is about 18 we will have it under control.


As for the little Empress, she is doing really well.

I don't think I filled you in on our trip to the fancy Los Angeles eye specialist...where we learned Elizabeth does indeed have Strabismus (crossed eye) and she will need to continue to wear her patch (photos to come) for a few more months and will likely need some eye surgery. I am currently in denial about that whole process but from what I understand the surgery is not too risky and is relatively common. Which makes me think of the saying, "surgery on someone else is minor surgery, any surgery on yourself is major surgery". I guess we will cross that bridge when it shows up but in the meantime I am glad that she is going to be in the care of one of the best doctors for this problem.

Elizabeth is also growing and maturing by leaps and bounds as you might imagine. She LOVES to go out and do things and every morning she is busy running around the house gathering up everyone's shoes and making the "car" sign (imitating using a steering wheel) and saying "bye bye". She is what I would call an "on the go" kind of girl.

She loves to go out to eat, loves to go to malls, supermarkets, beaches, pools, playgrounds--you name it. This is where living in Orange County California could lead to a culturally deprived child. There isn't a worthy museum in driving distance--although she is probably a tad young for that anyway. Although I would feel better strolling her around the Musuem of Natural History or the Met than I do having to take her to South Coast Plaza mall as often as I do. Alas...at least I don't have to worry about shlepping her in the rain and show.


She also love spending time with her grandparents and they seem to be part of the mutual admiration society. I have to snap a few more photos of them together.

Generally she is a happy and very social kid. She says hello and bye bye to pretty much everyone she meets--and I mean everyone! She is particularly drawn to scary looking fellas with lots of tattoos...no joke. Interestingly, she often gets wonderful smiles out of some of the meanest looking folks. Unlike her mamma she was not brought up in New York City where you learn VERY early not to make eye contact with anyone--and if they look scary you walk down another street! Not this baby...she is a Californian on that score.

Happy Times with George & Carmela

Last week friends George and Carmela came to visit us...well, actually I think they came to visit Elizabeth--and boy was she glad. She had a wonderful time --as we all did.

And it turns out that George could fill in for one of the Wiggles fellas should they ever retire. I have honestly never seen Elizabeth laugh as much as she did as when she was around George. One night we were out to dinner and I can tell you that George had Elizabeth laughing for at least an hour at his antics. She was totally smitten--who could blame her?

It was so nice to have Carmela and George here.